


i'm not afraid of running away with you

by TheDragonofHouseMormont



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, post-apocalypseish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:37:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonofHouseMormont/pseuds/TheDragonofHouseMormont
Summary: At night, when Ravi couldn’t work anymore from exhaustion, Clive would put on the kettle.  Liv would tell stories spun from her visions of the dead until the beginnings of a whistle told them the water was ready.  Over tea or cocoa they would share jokes and memories.  They’d walk out onto the porch together and try to figure out the constellations.  They never discussed work except in the daylight.Ravi's vaccine makes him a target in Seattle, so he, Liv, and Clive leave the city to hide out in a little house in a forest.





	i'm not afraid of running away with you

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Touch by Haux

The lab in the backroom had been pieced together with whatever resources he had managed to bring with him and pieces scavenged from a high school classroom in the nearest town, which was over thirty miles and an hour’s drive along barely-traveled-roads away.  It had to be good enough because there weren’t any other options short of breaking back into the zombie capital which now considered them traitors.

The backroom also doubled as both a laundry room and a pantry.  The top shelf on the wall, above their food, were vials and bottles that he had managed to smuggle out with him.  The cabin they’d found was small, but it was livable.  The main room was split into a living space, a kitchen, and a bedroom.  They had a front porch that locked shut, which really only protected them from people who respected locks.  Glass windows and screens were easy to break, and the porch door was light enough that it rattled in the wind.  Still, the added sense of security did a little to ease his mind; felt safe enough to step out onto the porch at night and look out at the stars.

The stars were the most remarkable thing about this place.  You couldn’t see them in Seattle, drowned out by the lights and the life of a city that never quite went to sleep.  The peninsula was quiet, isolated, and they had chosen one of the most isolated spots they could find.  There were no lights at night, no drunken people finding their way home, only the wind in the trees, the occasional owl, and the ocean that was a thirty minute walk away at most.

So he worked through the day, trying to keep his attempts at a cure separate from the laundry detergent.  The process was slower than it’d been in Seattle, his resources diminished.  Liv and Clive had broken into the high school on the way here.  None of the towns in the area actually held school anymore, at least not in such an obvious location.  The locals were terrified of some new zombie scheme to turn their children when they least expected it.  Ravi couldn’t find it in himself to blame them.

Most people had fled the state by encouragement of the United States government, but there would always be those determined to stay.  They kept a few stores running, gas stations, water.  This was their home and they wouldn’t leave it.  On the first day Liv had hastily donned a wig and makeup, and purchased the cabin with money they’d pooled together.  She’d then gone into a general store and stocked up on nonperishables, rainy weather clothing for the three of them, traps, an axe, and seeds.

Clive used the seeds to grow a garden beside the cabin and they left Liv to collect wood with the axe and her supernatural strength.  Clive and Liv shared cooking duties, with the latter carefully adding into her own portion the minimum necessary brains of her dwindling supply she kept in the freezer.  During the day, while Ravi kept to the backroom, the other two would keep an eye on the grounds, preparing for a fight that was bound to find them eventually.

Soon they would have to return to town for more supplies and Liv would have to put back on the wig and makeup that she detested.  They’d decided, of the three of them, and in the place they’d chosen as their new home, a young white woman was the least likely to catch anyone’s attention, so long as no one figured out that she was also the least human.  They could only hope they were right.

At night, when Ravi couldn’t work anymore from exhaustion, Clive would put on the kettle.  Liv would tell stories spun from her visions of the dead until the beginnings of a whistle told them the water was ready.  Over tea or cocoa they would share jokes and memories.  They’d walk out onto the porch together and try to figure out the constellations.  They never discussed work except in the daylight.

Ravi looked out the back window now, at the way the setting sun cast an orange glow over the last of the leaves.  Winter would be upon them soon enough.  Already they needed a fire in the fireplace to keep them warm while they slept.  Outside he could see the frost blanket thrown over the garden.

The smells of spices drifted in from the kitchen, alerting him to movements in the house.  He glanced down at the microscope in front of him and realized that his eyes were too tired to really take in what he was looking at.  It would be useless to try to continue on before morning.

Opening the door as quietly as possible, Ravi could see Clive at the stove and Liv sitting on a stool, humming some tune he didn’t recognize.  Clive offered her a smile and a small laugh, thrown over his shoulder.  It warmed Ravi to see them happy like this, after everything that had happened.  For a moment he considered just leaning against the doorframe to watch them, but as Clive turned back to cooking, he caught a glimpse of him.

“Welcome back,” Clive said.  “Hope you’re hungry.”

Ravi was pretty sure he was always hungry these days.  “I’m sure I’ll find my appetite.”

Over dinner they laughed at some absurd story Liv recounted about her and her brother nearly ten years ago.  If the fact that she hadn’t seen her brother since he was in the hospital bothered her, she didn’t let it show.

When they climbed into bed that night, Liv doing her best to wrap around both of them protectively, he thought about how he could tell them apart in the dark by scent alone.  Liv smelled of the moss and rain that seemed to cling to hair these days, Clive carried the scents of herbs and spices.  They smelled like home.

He let that thought carry him to sleep, determined to dream of them, of trees and ocean waves, and not of the city that had branded him a traitor for the vaccine he’d created.  The city Liv and Clive had given up everything to smuggle him out of safely.

-

A scream woke him up in the middle of the night.  His first thought at seeing the darkness around him was that he’d likely have a headache now for the rest of the day while he was working.  That thought was pushed aside when he saw Liv’s red eyes beside him.  He didn’t fear her like this, he knew from the time in the pit when she’d saved him from Marcy that he didn’t have to be afraid.

She placed a finger over her lips, warning him not to speak, and slipped from the bed.  Clive was out of bed the moment after her, retrieving his gun from the night stand.  Ravi followed them to the front window, peering out into the night.

He nearly jumped when a woman broke through the tree line and ran to their porch.  She banged her fist on the old door, causing it to rattle, and he could see tears streaming down her face.  “Please, is someone in their?  I need help!”

“We should let her in,” Clive whispered.  “I’m worried she’s going to wake up whatever else might be lurking in those woods at night.”

Liv shook her head.  “What if she’s been sent after us?  She could easily be some lackey from Fillmore Graves or someone who’s going around killing zombies and zombie sympathizers.”

Ravi almost raised his hand before realizing that they wouldn’t see it.  “I think, if she were here to kill us, that door wouldn’t exactly keep her out.  The fact that she hasn’t just pulled it open and come up to the main door tells me she likely doesn’t even know who we are, let alone want to kill us.”

Liv glanced at him, then at Clive who nodded, and she pulled open the door, stepping out onto the porch.  The woman’s eyes widened at the sight of Liv appearing like an apparition on an autumn’s night, but she seemed to calm a little as Clive and Ravi followed.  Clive kept his gun in his left hand, but he unlatched the porch door and let the woman in.  “What’s the matter, ma’am?” he asked.

She was breathing heavily and had to take in a deep gulp of air before speaking.  “Help!  It’s my husband.  I think – I think he’s been murdered.”

There was a moment where no one moved and the only thing Ravi could hear was the woman’s harsh breathing.  Then he watched as Liv and Clive turned to each other, silently deciding where to begin.

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is more of a prologue than anything, and I really want to write a full case fic (The Adventures of Liv, Clive, and Ravi solving crime while hiding out on the Olympic Peninsula). If I manage to find the time, I probably will.


End file.
